"Did your cousin just hear these rumors?"
"No, no. The girl who shared her dorm room... was kind of, kind of outgoing. She liked that sort of thing. She got friendly with the boys in her class really quickly, and with the instructors, too. A lot of the instructors at that place—the ones in the western suburbs—had only done their mandatory military service. You know, that kind of thing. Some had never served at all and just trained the students according to regulations. The students were all freshmen. They didn't know each other yet, and they'd just come up from middle school, so they were all pretty well-behaved. Heh, I was just like that back then. I wouldn't have dared even imagine doing something like that. That girl was bold. On the last night of military training, she secretly asked some people to come along and got the instructor to let them out through the back door. My cousin said there was another young instructor who went with them, too. It was just before lights-out, around eight in the evening. They each made an excuse to slip out, met at the back gate, and left together."
"Then it couldn't have been too late, right?"
"They set off early. They were ready to sneak out before eight. The only way to get from the training base to the labor camp farm was on foot. My cousin said they walked for quite a while. At first they were afraid to speak loudly and walked quickly, but once they got farther away, they started treating it like a game. It was nearly nine by the time they reached the farm. They were all tired by then. The farm was enormous, and they only went to the edge of it. Besides, they didn't even